Reactions fell firmly into two camps when I told people I would be travelling by train all the way from Toronto to Vancouver.

Most were envious. "I've always wanted to do that," was a common refrain.

But some looked horrified. Like maybe I was too poor to fly. Like I'd be sitting up, wedged in a smelly seat for the entire trip, which includes four nights. "Why?" was an almost equally common reaction.

I've got to admit that while I was predisposed to like the train (I have nostalgic memories of trips taken as a child), even I had a few last-minute doubts. What would I do for 87 uninterrupted hours? Would there be no chance to exercise? Would my novel last me 5,000 kilometres?

My fears were nothing, though, compared to those of some other passengers I met that first evening.

"There won't be WiFi?" said a worried-looking Nathalia Molina, who had planned to Skype with her young son who was back at home in Brazil.

"We won't have cellphone reception?" said a distressed Marie-Julie Gagnon, from Montreal, who tweets regularly.

"I was totally freaked out," said Nikki Bayley, from England, who has a blog and writes for websites.

The Canadian pulls out of Toronto at 10 p.m. three times a week. Ottawa is no longer on its route, but you can take a different VIA Rail train from Ottawa to Toronto, getting into Toronto hours earlier and storing your baggage at Union Station.

I had a whole afternoon to spare. A whole afternoon to fuss about the trip ahead, buying little bottles of shampoo and conditioner and searching for another novel.

When I still had time left over, I wandered over to the Art Gallery of Ontario since I still hadn't seen the nearly two-year-old Frank Gehry transformation. I was headed to see the new Galleria Italia when a stunning Lawren Harris painting stopped me in my tracks.

I ended up giving the gorgeous Galleria a quick walk-through, but lingered in the Thomson Collection among the Harrises, Tom Thomsons and David Milnes -- the scenery of Canada. I had no idea what a perfect prologue to the trip this would turn out to be.

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When you board The Canadian at Toronto's Union Station, you're shown your room or berth, then are invited back to the dome car at the very end of the train to toast the receding Toronto skyline with plastic glasses of champagne. This night, there's a full, magnificent moon hovering beyond the CN Tower.

The rear dome cars on each train are called Park cars by VIA. Each is named after a Canadian park -- ours is the Tremblant. Like the other 22 cars on this long, late-summer train, it's a throwback to an earlier era. It's curvy, retro and made of steel.

"We have the largest collection of train cars made by the Budd company in the world," says Pierre Santoni, senior director of sales for VIA Rail. "They were made in States in the '50s and now they're in demand, sort of like collectors' items. You could call them the Airstreams of trains."

Other things, too, are a throwback.

You have a paper ticket. No one asks about passports, liquids or laptops. There's a chocolate waiting on your pillow each night.

It feels a bit weird, the first night, to close the door on my tiny room and climb into my bunk. And it feels almost disrespectful to pull down the blind on the nightscape that's rattling by my window.

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The first thing I do when I wake is slide up the blind to see where we are. We haven't got all that far overnight -- just past Sudbury. You would have travelled this stretch faster in a car.

While the train hurtles across the Prairies, it usually rumbles through Ontario at a pretty slow pace. One of the employees explains that because so much of the Ontario track is on boggy ground, the rails have some give and bounce, forcing the train to go slow.

The train also has to pull over frequently to allow freight trains to pass. When CN and CP chose to get out of the passenger business in the late 1970s and Trudeau started VIA Rail, passenger trains became mere renters on most tracks.

On this first day, the view is a constantly changing mix of bedraggled towns, bogs and ponds, tunnels of trees and then -- wham -- it opens out for a minute or more to a shimmering lake, a granite outcrop or a view of a rocky island. The scenes I saw in the gallery the day before.

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After a hot shower (yes! there are now showers on the train), I head to the dining car for breakfast. You pause by the retro, etched-glass panels (each depicts a Canadian bird) at the entrance to the car and the maître d' seats you with other passengers at a table for four.

This tradition, and the food that goes with it, is another wonder of the train.

The menu includes everything from feta omelettes for breakfast to blueberry-and-balsamic-glazed lamb chops or arctic char for dinner.

My tablemates over the three days include everyone from a retired judge from Sault Ste. Marie to a pair of 50-something bank executives from Hamburg and a 30-something writer from Melbourne.

The judge tells me about how he was one of the first to offer some offenders the option of doing community work rather than jail time. Now -- like those he sentenced -- he spends much of his spare time working at a food bank.

From the German couple, I find out that when a European bank changes ownership, the atmosphere is much like it is at a Canadian newspaper that changes ownership.

And, from the Aussie, I hear about Dunbar's number -- the theory that you can maintain relationships with a maximum of about 150 people at a time.

"Travelling on the train is like hostelling, only classy," says Matt Davidson, 25, a web marketer from Ottawa. "I've met so many interesting people."

Davidson says he'd wanted to take the trip since he was in high school, but could only now afford it. His fare, a youth rate for an upper bunk, was about $1,000, compared to the $300 he'd pay to fly home.

"But this is basically four nights of hotels and the food is great," he says. "It's not just transportation."

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Blame it on a rest deficit from our over-busy lives, or credit the soothing rocking of the train, but most people seem to spend most of their first full day on the train napping, gazing, then napping some more. I think I was probably six months old the last time I slept this much.

Robyn Carrigan, 42, a folk singer from the Maritimes who now lives in Vancouver, says she's been taking the train across Canada since she was a baby.

"By the time I was seven or eight, my parents would get me my own little room next to theirs. I remember sliding my blind up to see the sunrise.

"I still prefer the little rooms that are just for one person. I'm in my own little pod. I can go out and be social, then I go in and be quiet and reflect."

By late afternoon on the second day, the scenery begins to draw everyone out.

"I was reading my book when we came to the Assiniboine River Valley," said Davidson. "I looked out the window and put my book down. Everyone in the car put their book down."

While the Prairies can appear flat and featureless from the Trans-Canada Highway, on the train you follow a curving river that's carved into verdant green banks that are unspoiled by cars or civilization. In Saskatchewan's stunning Qu'Appelle Valley, we spot a fox looking up, alert, watching the train from a golden field dotted with bales of hay.

We're halfway through dinner when Davidson politely interrupts our stream of conversation to point out that the sun is setting -- magnificently. Several of us leave our prime rib and roast potatoes to cool while we sprint up to the glass-domed observation car to appreciate the golden sunset spread around 360 degrees. The scene is accompanied by Carrigan, downstairs in the lounge, strumming on her guitar and singing a ballad.

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You start your third morning in Edmonton. Walter Grunow, 62, a consultant for Enbridge pipelines, is getting off here, his home.

"Now that I'm back, I'm kind of sad that I'm getting off," he says.

Grunow says that his first cross-country train trip has convinced him that people are kinder on the train.

"You're on the train and you're not getting off of it for days. You're relaxed and people seem friendlier."

He shakes hands with all the people in the car before saying goodbye and disembarking. When's the last time that happened to you on a plane?

While the train is stopped in Edmonton, a new kind of high-ceilinged observation car with huge windows is added for mountain viewing.

Cameras, which have been clicking since Toronto, go into full gear by the time we pull into Jasper beside the turquoise Athabasca River, with snow-topped mountains framing the view on all sides.

There's a 90-minute stop in Jasper. When I step out into the crisp mountain air to stretch my legs, I feel calm and revitalized. We've already travelled through two time zones, but there's no jetlag when you travel at train speed.

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By the fourth and final morning, rolling towards Vancouver's towers with the rising sun burning off the mist in the bucolic Fraser Valley, everyone seems saddened to leave this gentle, self-contained world -- none more than the women who had felt so panicky about being unplugged.

"I thought I'd get so much work done on the train, but I've done none of it," said Bayley of Brighton. "I just wanted to soak it all up."

When she was in the WiFi-equipped station in Winnipeg, Molina from Brazil got a chance to connect with her son. After that, she just enjoyed the rare peace.

Gagnon, from Montreal, looks bright-eyed and revived.

I never even opened that second novel that I'd scurried around Toronto to buy. (And I didn't need to worry about little bottles of shampoo and conditioner either -- your room comes with a basket of toiletries and towels.)

When I return to my room to get my suitcase, there's a certificate waiting on my bed, commemorating the trip. It's the kind of thing I'd normally find corny, but I'm strangely pleased by it.

"I think travelling on the train opens us up in a way that we used to be," says Carrigan. "It's a real Canadian tradition."

Maybe Bill Steele, a 64-year-old truck driver from Woodstock, Ont., summed it up best. He said he was surprised by his first rail trip.

"I thought it was just a train."

Laura Robin is the Citizen's Travel editor.

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If you go

What: The Canadian travels from Toronto to Vancouver three times a week, with stops in Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Jasper and several smaller places.

Sleeping: Accommodation ranges from Economy, where you have a reclineable seat in a coach car and can purchase food, to "Sleeper Touring Class," which has berths that convert to bench seating during the day, as well as cabins for one, two or three people. Showers are in a separate room, one per car. Meals are served in a separate dining car and are included in sleeper-class fares.

Cost: For adults, regular prices range from $788 for an Economy class seat to $1,605 for a lower berth and $2,057 for a cabin for one, or per person for a cabin for two, during peak season (June1 to Oct. 21). Lower prices are available in the off-season and for children, students, those between 18 and 25, and those older than 60.

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